Posts Tagged ‘Faculties’

In 2005 the Industrial Design Engineering course (now called Innovation Design Engineering) held their interim show. Paul Ewing from Imperial’s Mechanical Engineering was then an IDE course tutor and he asked us to capture some of the activities during one of the evening shows. Paul acted as off-camera interviewer during the shoot at the Royal College of Art, right next door to Imperial College.

This course has now been running for over 35 years and here’s a flavour of what was happening 13 years ago…

This is one video in a series that we recorded called ‘Academic Interviews’ and it featured Professor Dame Julia Higgins.

Julia has been studying the behaviour of complex materials, particularly polymers, at Imperial College London since joining as a lecturer in the Chemical Engineering Department in 1976. Her research group specialises in the use of neutron scattering techniques to investigate polymer behaviour. She was appointed reader in 1985 and professor of polymer sciences in 1989.

She was elected Dean of the City and Guilds College from 1993 to 1997 and was appointed CBE in 1996. In 1995 Julia was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1999. She was named a Dame in the 2001 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Predating the 1993 Undergraduate and Postgraduate Videos, seen in a previous blog, Lady Clare Ash (the wife of former Rector Sir Eric Ash) made a one-off video called Snapshots.

Lady Clare Ash in 2007

It was made to showcase just some of the then current research taking place at Imperial. I seem to recall that Eric Ash was about to go on an overseas trip to several countries, including India and that this was made to accompany his presentations. You’ll notice the emphasis on past Imperial Nobel Prize winners at the start of the video and a rather slow list of Imperial’s Fellows of the Royal Society towards the end.

Several areas of research from around the college were featured. Two Nobel Prize winners included were the late Lord George Porter (1920-2002) and the late Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson (1921-1996), both are seen working in their respective labs. Bob Schroter (featured in a previous blog) talks about his work with Camels; Steve Ley, formerly from Chemistry, discusses pest control, whilst Howard Thomas from St Mary’s talks about Hepatitis Vaccine.

Towards the end, we featured some of the first ‘vox pops’ in one of our videos, where current students talk about their experiences and views of being at Imperial College. You will see the first aerial footage of Imperial used at the start of the video. This was provided to us by the (then) University of London Audio Visual Centre and was shot by them as part of a 16mm film they made for Channel Four Television. The video concludes with the former Rector himself, Sir Eric Ash, speaking direct to the audience with his views on where Imperial is today and what his vision is for Imperial tomorrow. This was shot in the old Rectors office up in the Sherfield Building.

Made originally for showing only at the 2002 Open Day, this fast-paced video ended up being used in many different ways and on just as many occasions too. As with all these archive videos there are the usual array of shots of Imperial from the past. The video was made before we went from the old ‘square’ 4:3 video format into widescreen 16:9 so that makes it look even older to me. You will also notice that this was prior to the new Imperial branding, so the caption scrolling across only says Imperial College and not Imperial College London as it would these days. Although it’s all a bit fast to analyse each individual image, you may spot some shots of the original Southside with its bike rack, as well as the old sports gym. Can you also spot the now gone Waterstones bookshop in the Library and also the Squash court? The video was also before the completion of the new Business School and college main entrance. So the architects ‘fly through’ animation was used to give an impression of what was to come. A lot has now changed at Imperial since this video was made only 11 years ago and that includes the college TV studio closure (our logo is seen at the end of the video). I hope that Alumni will find a few memories in looking at this.

You may be aware that a renaming of Mechanical Engineering has just taken place. The new 1960’s building, located on Exhibition Road, has just been renamed The City and Guilds Building. Pre 1960 Alumni will recall the original building, the foundation stone of which was laid in 1881. Previous blogs about City and Guilds recalls the history and includes a brief section of a 16mm colour film made in 1960. Here, I am showing for the first time the full unedited version. It’s silent and was intended to show the ‘old and new’ developments as the original building was slowly pulled down and the new building created behind it (hence the setback of the Mechanical Engineering Building from the roadway).

The film also shows the only record we have of Sir Owen Saunders (then Dean of City and Guilds 1955-1964 and also acting Rector 1966-1967). This is a unique piece of Imperial College history and the only film we have of the old buildings. The fact that it’s in colour is a added bonus.

Back in 2010 I brought you the two videos that were made to coincide with the City and Guilds centenary in 1985, they were Studying for the Future and Discovering the Future. I had promised to bring you a third video made later in that year called Mastering the Future. Obviously, this video was intended to showcase and promote the idea of taking a masters degree at Imperial College.

Key figures from Industry were featured to give a sense of what was required from University students taking such masters degrees. One person appearing was Sir George Porter, later Lord Porter who was then President of the Royal Institution. Later he moved to Imperial College to continue his research work. By the time the video was made Eric Ash had become Rector, superseding Brian Flowers. One of the few recordings that we have of Professor Bruce Sayers, then head of computing and also dean of City and Guilds is part of this video. Once more there are some great views of ‘Imperial past’ featured such as: the original front entrance on Exhibition Road; Sports Centre and Gym; Libraries and the 1960’s Walkway with Bookshop.

28 years ago today on July 8th 1985 a project between Imperial College and the Honda Automobile Company was celebrated with the official opening of the new Honda Wind Tunnel in the Department of Aeronautics.

The Aeronautics Wind Tunnel today

Earlier in that decade the Honda company had approached the college and offered to pay the costs of the construction of a large wind tunnel. It transpires that Honda were trailing behind competitors in their car design and needed help. They offered to pay the construction costs in return for the testing of car models and the training of staff in wind tunnel technology. Professor Peter Bearman from Imperial College oversaw the design and construction, he can be seen towards the end of the video. Former Rector the late Lord Brian Flowers makes the initial presentation, followed by the then head of the department, Dr Glyn Davies. The design and construction created, at the time, one of the world’s largest wind tunnels. The contract with Imperial College was also one of the biggest between a Japanese automobile company and an academic institution.

The tunnel was opened by Mr Fujio Ishikawa, Senior Managing Director of the Honda Motor Company. You can read a full page article about the wind tunnel in the Imperial College student newspaper Felix dated 17 May 1985, scroll down to page 6 on the PDF.

If you were studying Chemistry at Imperial College in the early 1980’s you would almost certainly have come across the series of teaching videos that we made. These were designed to provide a single definitive version of classic experiments carried out in the labs. The way that it worked was that during a lab period students would have a number of ‘demonstrators’ who positioned themselves around the lab. They would then proceed to show the undergrads the way to achieve what was needed of them during the session. This was deemed to have flaws when it was discovered that very slightly different versions were actually being demonstrated. So, colleagues in the Chemistry Department asked for some of the experiments and also the techniques required, to be captured on video. These videos would then be made available to the students in the college library, prior to the lab session day and also at the start of the actual lab session via video players located around the lab. Starting 32 years ago, from 1981 to 1993, 11 of these classic experiment videos were made. Two of these: ‘Recrystallisation’ and ‘Using an Oil Vacuum Pump’ are on this page.

The old TV Studio Control Room in 2006

Making them was not always so easy. To capture the experiments we needed to be able to record, as much as possible, in ‘real time’. That is, record the action without stopping or having to then edit later. We needed to be able to try and capture what would have been demonstrated live in the lab. Also, when an experiment had started, it couldn’t always be stopped on a whim from me because I couldn’t get a good camera shot! So, we had to be able to record with several cameras and this meant shooting in the College TV Studio** where we had three cameras available. Shooting this way meant we could, as much as possible, run in real time; if we had rehearsed what was going to happen. So, using three cameras we were able to plan ‘blocks’ of the experiments that could be recorded before we had to stop and reset cameras etc. (more…)

In a previous entry you would have seen the video I made to celebrate the City and Guilds College Centenary in February 1985. As part of the week of events an exhibition was run entitled “Technology 2000”. It was opened by Margaret Thatcher -who was then Prime Minister- on 27 February 1985.

Professor Bruce Sayers was then Dean of City and Guilds and made the introduction. This version of the speech is the full version. The one already seen in the C&G centenary video is edited down to fit into a specific duration. Here then is the full, unedited version, from the original 1985 master tape.

On the 19th June 2001 Sir Richard Sykes, then Rector of Imperial College, launched the first e-MasterClass with a broadcast to distinguished guests from government and other institutions in Britain, Australia and Thailand. The launch was preceded with the statement “Topical debate between masters at the cutting edge of scientific research and peer group scientists and industrialists around the world will be launched next month in what is believed to be the first e-MasterClass of its kind”. This first 40-minute presentation about healthcare policy was chaired by Chris Toumazou and was held in the video conferencing suite, which at the time was located next to the TV Studio on the level 2 walkway.

Video Conferencing using ISDN

Professor Ara Darzi’s live presentation

The technology used to link the various locations was Video Conferencing using ISDN2. The equipment allowed the ‘multipointing’ of the three sites into a split screen which meant that participants could all see and hear other with very little time delay. Images were viewed on 50 inch Plasma screens, something back then that was both new and expensive.

Press release information following the second e-MasterClass announced “Professor Ara Darzi impressed participants at the University of New South Wales, Australia, with a presentation entitled Look no hands — an exploration in cybersurgery which encapsulated his team’s dynamic new approach to micro-surgery and robotics and set out his vision for the future of surgery”.

Professor David Phillips presentation

Live Internet streaming came later

The e-MasterClass, as originally intended, carried on for just over a year when they turned in Schools e-MasterClass. These potentially had a wider audience and continued Imperial’s links with schools in general. On the 10 July 2002 David Phillips from Imperial and colleague Steven Bown from UCL gave “A little light relief”. Again a pre-event announcement said “A Little Light Relief”, will provide an interactive overview of the subject that will give Year 9, 10 and 11 students the opportunity to engage with scientific developments” In the recording of the event (below) you will notice that the chairman is Noel Edmonds. He owned the Video Meeting Company which supplied Imperial with the Video Conferencing equipment. As publicity, he was persuaded to take part.

These initial events were successful. But the schools were all connecting using ISDN2 which few other schools had available. It was obvious we needed to revert to using the Internet which all schools did have available. However, what no one had told us at the time was that almost none of the schools could Video Conference connect to IP addresses outside of their own grid (for security reasons). So, we started to stream events in parallel on the Web. Again, schools could not connect as they were limited to a strict list of URL’s. None of the schools were prepared to change this list and slowly over just a few years the whole e-MasterClass just stopped!

In 2001 we made a promotional video to show the potential of the original e-MasterClass. The video is largely based on Richard Sykes presentation in June of that year. It includes shots showing what the remote end of the links were seeing. These days the technology allows people to link from their computers and this gives the possibility to link at night, but to do so from your home not from a University room. There is the obvious fact that very long distance ‘live’ teaching, such as the original e-MasterClass idea, is totally governed by TIME. A time difference between London and Sydney of 11 hours makes it very difficult to bring together people who (at 10pm at night in Sydney) would rather be at home, than watching academics talking in London. Time-Difference was one of the reasons for the downfall of the original e-MasterClass. But, what we did worked and maybe just proved a point that Imperial can do such things. I had fun with these events and the tension of things going wrong was always there. The e-MasterClass was, perhaps, a little too early in terms of the technology available at its start in 2001 and could be superseded by things like Skype available on your computer at work or home.